My parents came into town today for a visit, they will be here until Wednesday and we are very excited! We spent the day exploring my ‘hood and everyone had a great time. I will say in advance that there were a lot of indulgences! It is way too late, once again, so this is a pretty cursory review.

I started my morning off right with this fellow –

A small green juice from a spot on Flatbrush. I had them add carrot to this and it was very, very tasty.

My parents, being islanders and all, were very excited to hit up Target so that was our first stop. While we were there we got “brunch” at Buffalo Wild Wings (no, this was obviously not a spot we needed to show off, but my mom and dad couldn’t eat on the plane and food was a necessity). I got the naked tenders.

They came with blue cheese, honey bbq, and potato wedges.

I ate 3 out of 4 pieces of chicken and gobbled up the fries. I love that NY menus post calories, there is no way I would have guessed that what I ate had only about 350calories.

From there we hit up the farmers market at Prospect Park.

My parents loved it here! We bought macaroons to munch while we walked around,

and the four of us split a strawberry cider.

Next up, we went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.

We had a great time walking around. The coolest exhibit was called “Wicked Plants,” and it showcased plants that are psychotropic, deadly, or illegal. It was a lot of fun.

After that we headed to my apartment so my parents could check the place out (they are staying in a hotel, it works for my girlfriends to stay in one room with us, but my mom and dad wanted space!). I was very happy to share a big sampling of Newman’s Own Organics with them – they were very excited about it 🙂

For dinner we wanted to stay local so we went to Perch, a fun spot on 5th.

We did a lot of sharing so my portions are not very clear, but you can assume I had more than my fair share! They brought homemade bagel chips to the table as soon as we sat down.

I ordered a Bloody Mary to drink.

I’ve only had this at brunch but I feel like they can rock it at dinner, I love the spiciness.

It came with bread chunks and apple slices and was absolute perfection!

We also split the most amazing salad I’ve ever had.

It was Waldorf inspired and had apples, buttermilk dressing, candied nuts and grapes.

I felt the need to extend the cheesiness to my entree (not a good idea) and I ordered the mac and cheese blend of grueyere, cheddar, blue cheese, and green onions.

It was good but cheese followed by cheese was just too much for me, I only ate about 1/3. I shared some big bites of everyone’s sandwiches too.

I ralied in time for dessert and ordered the maple ginger bread pudding.

It wasn’t all that good, it was much more like a loaf of bread then a pudding, but I was pretty buzzed and self-control flew out the window. I ate about 1/2 and gave myself a tummy ache.

A and I walked my parents back to their hotel and then made a treck (1.5miles) to the movie theatres. I don’t know what was worse, the fact that Transformers sucked so badly or that I polished off this medium popcorn without any help from A.

Hola chicas y chicos! I realize this is a twofer post, but it is also a midnight wasted post, so it will be a quickie.

Thursday was pretty un-monumental. I ate a KIND Bar as my train breakfast.

KIND Bars always make me happy.

The school day was a little weird, the kids were getting so tired of doing nothing. A lot of people were watching a movie in Mr. S’s room and my girls class came in and was like “we cleaned up and played that game (Scattegories) in Ms. Wax’s room, can we do that again?!?” Midway through the day we ended up going to an Anti-Violence Parade. It was totally non-related to violence or the lack of violence but there was food and performances. I couldn’t eat the burgers and hot dogs but one of my students bought me an (unphotographed) icee that made me pretty happy 🙂

For my non-mammal-on-the-grill lunch I came inside and ate this Asian-Style Potstickers Lean Cuisine.

I’ve decided that I only like frozen “diet” meals when they are Asian inspired.

The rest of the day was pretty random. A went out with his co-workers and I hung out at home and vegged. I ate some snacks but never officially did dinner. I had 3 of these.

And 1C of KashiHeart to Heart Blueberry with vanilla hempmilk.

I bought this Living Harvest Hemp Milk after hearing blogger raves but I wasn’t all that impressed, it was a little too sweet for my liking.

I also made a 3T serving of paperbag popcorn.

Now Friday, however, is when the fun started! Today was finally, officially, my last day of teaching. It was a little bittersweet because as excited as I am about going back to school and starting a new profession it’s odd to think about not teaching any more. I had said most of my goodbyes to students earlier in the week so I didn’t have to shed too many tears about that.

{I will say, I shed some tears right now: I wrote a mega post that somehow got erased and my rewrite will be nowhere near as insightful}

I didn’t eat any breakfast but I was very excited to eat my last lunch from the pizza spot across the street from the school.

Goodbye East New York food!

The kids were dismissed at 10:30 and then things got a bit ridiculous. We got called in to a staff meeting for which the entire purpose was to scream at the teachers. Our principal got back the results of a DOE survey on which she and the school got very poor scores – she was pissed. She screamed at us for more than an hour. In addition to several other things, she said that even though we usually get out early on the last day she was holding us until 3 as punishment.

After she left some older staff members continued to scream for another hour. Some of the things that were said were just shocking – there was so much anger and inappropriateness. The newer teachers were shocked, Ms. N actually left the room and Mr. H said he felt like he was going to throw up. One of the issues is that the school got very poor ratings on school safety and the screamers were beyond aggressive in saying that people were wrong. There main points were a) things are a lot better than they used to be; and b) the kids aren’t “that bad” and it is pathetic that adults would feel unsafe. I’m going to address those points really quickly.

A) It doesn’t matter if things are better, if they are not ok they are not ok. You can not and should not lower your standards just because there has been a slight improvement. I get that the kids used to light the bulletin boards on fire, that was a problem. However, the lack of flaming bulletin boards does not a safe school make. At least 2 times a week at least 5 students would come to school in the middle of the day, stoned as hell, and wander the hallways messing with other students. That is unacceptable.

B) In spite of my experiences (for example: a male student getting an inch from my face and screaming that he would f*cking kill me. Or another student bashing my face into a wall) I do NOT feel unsafe. When it comes down to it, I am an adult and they are children. However, when I filled out the survey I wasn’t thinking about my safety, I was thinking about student safety (funny, I thought that’s what we all were worried about?!). It is not safe that in our middle school we have many 16year oldsrunning around and terrorizing 12year olds. Bullying is unacceptable and it is rampant in our school.

Anywho, Moving on to happier things! Both administrators gave me a hug and told me I did a great job and my principal told me I have a job waiting for me whenever I want it. And after that we got wasted 🙂 Ms. M organized an escape celebration for me and I couldn’t be more grateful. A group of us that were close went to Franklin Park Bar in Prospect Heights.

I started with a Franklin lemonade, which was delish.

And then I made people do a round of Knob Creek shots.

And then I did another shot (alongside a too sweet mojito that I handed off after 1sip).

And then I had a pear cider.

And another.

And I also had a final shot that I was definitely not able to photograph. I had a great time but I was definitely only semi-functional at that point and I very much appreciate Ms. M for driving. I managed to get a pic of part of our group.

I love (some of) my coworkers!

Afterwards a smaller group of us headed to a diner in my ‘hood because every one wanted shakes and burgers. I got a black and white milkshake.

It was good but A showed up and drank most of it. I also got a turkey burger.

The fries were for Ms. N, I didn’t have any, and I had about half of the burger with A.

After my coworkers split A and I went down to 5thAvenue to meet up with my friend Lana (from Williamsburg). Her bf was dj’ing and we went to watch. I had a great time catching up, but definitely didn’t do any more drinking! Apparently Lana has been reading my blog, so that is exciting – Hi Lan!

Afterwards A and I did a long walk home and stopped in at a grocery store. I picked up my favorite frozen food ever.

This veggie pad thai seriously rocks so hard, it is fantastic.

And now it is beyond time for bed. It was a great, great day, I feel very blessed. I am also excited because my parents are coming into town for a visit tomorrow, see ya then!

It is obviously quite late so I will try to make this a quickie (hehe). A and I had a good walk finish our errands. I even took a shot of my tootsies because the fabulousness of the Chanel nail polish my mommy gave me needs to be shown.

When we got home we got down to dinner making. My father and I have been talking about cooking fish (my parents’ new routine is fish every Sunday) and he generously offered to have A and me use his credit card to buy some.

Mahi Mahi is my favorite fish other than salmon. We were hungry so we did things quickly. First we did a three minute marinade,

2T mayo, juice from 1lime, and a big sprinkle of paprika. Then A cooked it on the stove top for about 8 minutes, delish.

We also had oven roasted asparagus,

and sweet potato with Smart Balance Light.

All together.

It was a really nice meal – thanks dad! I had a small glass of A’s beer too.

Our big after dinner plan was gelato that my girlfriends left but we had the fun discovery that our freezer had completely defrosted – woo who! So we went to the movies instead 🙂 We saw The Hangover which 100% rocked my socks. While we watched I had a regular sized Jr Mints (as in not movie biggie sized) that I bought at Staples today,

and 2 handfuls of caramel corn.

I like having small hands, my palm can’t physically hold more than a .5C serving.

Sorry for my two day absense – my obsessive need to be near A has lead me to make some stupid (but fun!) decisions. I’ve done a LOT so this with be a slightly less detailed account. It’s been a greattwo days, but I’ll backtrack…..

I try not to eat Balance Bars all the time because they do have 2.5 – 4grams of saturated fat, but they sure are good!

For lunch I packed a Fiji apple,

a TJ’s Nonfat Honey Greek Yogurt,

and 1serving of Doctor Kracker Fire Roasted Crisps.

The apple was super mealy so I only ate half but the crackers and the yogurt hit the spot.

After school I rushed around trying to get some program applications (I’m going to try to post about this on Thursday) filled out and faxed. It was a lovelyspring day and I was glad I dressed in season for school.

The picture is blurry but here is the flowery fabric –

I love this shirt, I got it and the same but in black from H&M last year.

With more rushing, I even managed to make it to the gym for a class. 1st I did 15minutes (2walk/13jog) on the treadmill to warm up. I did 1.6miles. Then I headed into a 30minute Abs and Stretching class . Holey Moley, I couldn’t even finish all of the sets!

Next up, making dinner. I did some snacking while cooked, I serving each of turkey pepperoni and salted peanuts.

It is also possible that I ate an ice-cream Snickers bar.

Yums.

Dinner was very veggie,

baked tofu in a sea of roasted brussels sprouts with a small pile of coleslaw. I had never eaten a brussels sprout before this year but now roasted they are one of my favs.

The tofu I drained, pressed, sliced, then drizzled with evoo and a sprinkle of dried mustard and paprika, baked for 25minutes at 475*. My eyes were bigger than my stomach, I only ended up eating 2slices (1/3 of the package).

And finally was homemade cole slaw, recipe below.

All together.

The cole slaw was inspired by this sale item at the grocery store –

Cole Slaw Recipe

4C shredded cabbage

3T mayo

3T apple cidar vinegar

1t sugar

1/2C raisins

Mix to combine and Done. I’m sure this will be even better leftover. I love raisins in cole slaw.

Somehow after dinner A convinced me to see a 10:15 showing of “Drag Me to Hell.” Drag me to Hell is right – Worst.Movie.Ever. Seriously, I don’t know if you guys remember the year in the ’90’s when 80 movies in a row were terrible (Godzilla, Breakdown, etc.) but this movie was worst than all of those movies combined! Even scarier was what I ate during the movie (I always eat a ton during scary movies) – an entire container of pretzel bites with fake cheese and a box of cookie dough bites. Seriously, I’m glad I don’t have pictures. A calls me a goldfish, I actually made myself nausous.

This morning I was still feeling so gross from the movie-crapfest that my train breakfast didn’t get eaten until well into 2nd period!

Doesn’t that sound good? Well, no, no it was not. I took about 2 bites before I decided I’d rather be hungry.

I stayed after school to conference with some kids then rushed to the post office to main in an application. A was my knight in shining armor today – it was pouring and he came and met me at the train with an umbrella. Even better, he let me talk him into a meal at Sweet Melissa!

It was wet and chilly enough out for a hot drink so I took full advantage, Sugar and Spice Latte.

was served on a crossaint and had green apples and golden raisins in it.

Delish. Usually I don’t eat the bread on restaurant sandwiches (and I never eat crossaints) but today I ate the whole thing and it was delicious.

A and I hung out at home for a bit and then he said he was going for a run. Well, my plan for June is to slowly get back into running shape doing intervals but I’m a crazy-face who misses my husband all day so I jumped up and said I’d go too! We did some loops in Prospect Park and a few little loops in the Slope. And get this – in 35minutes (I ran the exact time of my 35minute gym playlist on my i-pod, which was an exciting coindence) we did 4.4miles! Not only did I know think I could run for 35minutes straight I never thought I could do more than 3miles this out of shape! Other than a few quick stops for boob adjustment (holey heck I need new sports bras) we ran the entire time. And my ankles/knees don’t even hurt yet (keeping my fingers crossed)! I can not even describe to y’all how excited I am.

The title should actually be “Up and The Nut Box,” but that doesn’t make me giggle. We took full advantage (and foodvantage!) of the summerish day. Sorry I ran off in a hurry last night, but Maneater was coming on! I watched the 2nd half tonight and it rocked my socks – Sarah Chalke is my favorite actress.

I really liked these little candies. The inside had a kind of strange gummy texture but the flavors were good together.

Then A and I decided to go into the city for a late brunch. On the way there we got lemonade.

When A bought his the woman said it was sugarfree so I decided to get some too. After tasting it we found out that it was made with some sort of fake sugar and was not good at all; we each drank less than 1/3. I need to make some homemade lemonade soon, it sounded so good!

This was delicious! I adore poached eggs and the bread was perfect for yolking. I am sure the grits were good, but apparently I don’t like grits, so I ended up leaving most of them.

I ordered a Freeman’s Bloody Mary made with potato vodka, freshly grated horseradish and garnished with a caperberry.

It was only ok, the reason I have been liking Bloody Marys lately is for the spice and the horseradish in this kind of tapered off.

What was great was the next two drinks A and I shared: a Germain Fizz champagne, elderflower liquor, grapefruit and a Bourbon Tea Cooler bourbon, iced tea, pomagranate syrup.

The Germain Fizz was the best drink of the day (A also had champagne with absinthe), it was perfectly fizzy and sour.

I even got dessert, Bananas Foster with rum butterscotch sauce!

So frickin good! A ate off all the ice-cream but I pretty much devoured the rest. Kath posted about this dessert last week and I realized I hadn’t had it in forever – so glad I got to satisfy the urge.

I have to be honest, I was pretty wasted by the end of brunch. I have always been a lightweight, even when I drank a lot, so at my current rate of less than one a week I am ridiculous. I stumbled around SoHo laughing and fell asleep on A’s lap for the whole train ride home! Not, however, before we stopped in at Boss Tweeds to play an arcade game!

When we got home (I had sobered up) we did some errands and hung out. We watched a movie and my next bright idea (after candy and booze) was to eat a huge bowl of popcorn with melted SmartBalance for “dinner.”

Goooooood. Not good was the movie, we rented “Rachel Getting Married” and I do NOT recommend it. I love Anne Hathaway and I was really looking forward to this but it was so slow! Has anyone else seen this flick?

A and I took a long walk around the ‘hood and our final bright idea was renting a Scrubs dvd. Our brilliant plan is to stay up half the night cuddling and watching. I love Scrubs with A so much I mentioned it in our wedding vows! Hope everyone else has a comfy cozy night!

What are some of your guilty pleasures? I am a (guilt free) popcorn, walks, and Scrubs fanatic!

Oh man, what a good weekend! Sunday = fun day. This will be a quick post because it is laaaate.

Yesterday morning A and I got up and trekked (in the rain!) to Target. From there we headed to a movie theatre in Cobble Hill to watch the new X-Men movie. We were both super hungry but the theatre is on a crappy street and it was pouring so we ended up getting food here –

There was literally nothing healthy on this menu, nor anything I really wanted, so I chose by calorie count alone! The chicken biscuit had 350calories so chicken biscuit it was!

This actually wasn’t too bad tasting! I would have still been hungry, but I was saving my self for movie snacks! A small popcorn,

and Dark Chocolate Cookie Dough Bites.

A and I really enjoyed the movie, it had some great action and some really funny moments too! When we got home I got down to business and got 90% of my work for this week done. From there we (FINALLY) headed to the gym 🙂 I did 25minutes on the treadmill at 2minutes running/1minute walking intervals to equal 2.6miles. I also did 5minutes of abs/stretching on the mats and 5minutes of arms on the machines. It felt so good to be active again.

On the way home we stopped to fill in a few grocery staples we still needed and A got himself some pizza. I made fun of him, but in reality I ate half of this slice 🙂

After doing a little more work, it seemed like a really good idea to see a second movie – oh yeah, we roll like that! We headed to “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.” It was good, but a little chick-flicky for me. I made some better snack choices for this one (especially since they ended up serving as dinner).

A Sigg full of h2o, a big baggie of green grapes, and 1serving of Coldstone Jelly Bellys.

It is clearly time for bed, good night!

How often do you go to the movies? I know A and I go a lot, but honestly, I really really like movies! I think acting, and not just stage acting, but particularly film is so beautiful – this is a Lot of power in a well done scene. People like Zach Braff and Will Smith seriously make me wonder how I kept myself from throwing sense away and doing something in film (fun fact – I have dreamed of being an actress since I was a little kid and I saw “Annie” for the first time).